Macreuse de Bœuf - One of the Tastiest Steaks on French Menus.

from
Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman
behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com


Macreuse de Bœuf.
Photograph courtesy of Gemini 

The steak, called a Macreuse à bifteck in French supermarkets will be Macreuse de Bœuf on most French menu listings and has no generally accepted English translation. This steak is flavorful and tasty but don’t order it well done; it’s best rare to medium rare (à point).  Ordering a macreuse de bœuf well done will bring you a piece of leather. If you want a good well-done steak order an entrecôte,  which will be more expensive but still edible when well done. There is no similar cut to a macreuse de bœuf on USA or UK menus, although it is available in the French-speaking part of Canada.

The macreuse à bifteck comes from the same area as the US and UK chuck, the shoulder, but the French cut the chuck very differently. Instead of cutting the chuck across and combining the different tastes and textures as a whole, the French cut each muscle separately, and the macreuse à biftek provides a steak with a bigger bang for the buck.  In French cooking schools’ fully qualified chefs have to learn nearly as much about the cuts of beef as a butcher to graduate, and in restaurants the French diners are knowledgeable; they expect flavorful cuts at reasonable prices and this steak fits the bill.

 

N.B. There are two macreuse cuts.
But only one is the macreuse à bifteck 

From talking to butchers in the USA, I learned that better cuts from the chuck are available.  They include the chuck tender steak, the shoulder petite tender and the chuck eye steak, and the flat-iron steak. However, none of my sources could offer me an English name for the French macreus à bifteck.

If you are staying in an Airbnb in France and want to cook this tasty steak while your in France, read the description carefully in the supermarket or butchers.  There is a second muscle called a macreuse à pot-au-feu, (seen in the diagram above), and that is a cut for stewing. 


Macreuse a Bifteck on French menus:


Macreuse de Bœuf, à l'Echalote et Poivre Vert  - A macreuse à biftek pepper steak prepared with shallots and green pepper.  Controlling the taste of a dish with black pepper is not easy, so when French chefs prepare a pepper steak, many prefer green pepper, which allows a controllable heat.  

 

Grilling Macreuse de Bœuf.

Photograph courtesy of Gemini

 

Macreuse de Bœuf Cuite 6h, Bacon de Sanglier des Bois et Champignons Sauvages - A macreuse à biftek steak slowly cooked for six hours and prepared with bacon from a wild boar from the woods and served with wild mushrooms. A steak like this will have been seared on the outside and the allowed to cook at a low temperature for over six hours; the result will be a steak with all the flavor locked in and a texture that will almost melt in your mouth. 

     Sanglier - France farm-raises wild boar that is available all year round but this menu listing tells the diner that this is wild boar from the woods and real wild boar have a much stronger flavor than their farm-raised cousins and wild boar’s bacon is very different.  Real wild boar are only available in the hunting season; thought that season last seven months and as their populations are growing they are considered a pest.

      Unfortunately, wild boars do not just stay in the woods and forests that cover over 25% of the mainland. At night the wild boar wander out, and in addition to eating the crops in the fields they also tear the grapes from vines and eat them. This is France abd you can't expect the French to be happy if someone is consuming the source of their wines.   

      The hunting season for real wild boar begins in June in most areas.]Apart from causing damage to farmers they cause over 30,000 car accidents every year, including over 20 fatalities. 

      To ensure consumers about the safety of safety genuine wild boar meat every animal must have its meat tested in a government approved laboratory before it can be served in a restaurant or home.  The steak dish above, with its wild boar bacon and wild mushrooms, will be make a memorable dish.

      Champignons Sauvages - France has wonderful wild and cultivated mushrooms. Every wild mushroom has its season and the menu listing above may be on the menu for six or seven months a year with the wild mushrooms changing every three to four weeks as the season changes.  It’s worthwhile asking about the wild mushrooms on the menu, as you may enjoy mushrooms rarely seen at home. Three of the most popular wild mushrooms are:

     The Bolet– The Weeping Bolet Mushroom.  From the end of April through September, the Weeping Bolet mushrooms are so bountiful they will be in nearly every French market and supermarket and on many menus.

     The Cèpe - The French Porcini Mushroom. The cèpe or penny bun is found in France’s many pine forests and between early August and mid October will be on many menus. menus. 

      Chanterelle Girolle - The Chanterelle Mushrooms.   The chanterelle mushroom family has a long season (depending on the weather) from July through October.  

 

Wild boar crossing sign

Be careful when driving in the French countryside.

 

Macreuse de Bœuf, Légumes Racines Confits – A macreuse de bœuf,  steak accompanied by root vegetables that have been slowly cooked with a slightly sweetened wine or balsamic vinegar.  

       Root vegetables-  In North America and the UK, root vegetables are often overlooked or consigned to soups with only the celebrity chefs taking them out of the heirloom vegetable cupboard.  In France from the smallest restaurant to the bistros and brassieres to three-star Michelin Guide restaurants parsnips, (panais), turnips (navets), and swedes (chou-navets or rutabaga) will be on many menus, these are tasty vegetables and a welcome change to the ubiquitous peas, green beans, and carrots.

 

Macreuse de Bœuf Sauce au Poivre et Whisky, Salade Composée, Vinaigrette au Cidre et Frites  A macreuse de bœuf,steak prepared in a pepper and whisky sauce served with a salad with a cider vinaigrette and French fries. 

      Whisky - Scotland, Canada and Japan produce whisky spelled without the ‘e,' but so does France. So if you are a whisky maven ask for more information on this menu listing. 

 

Macreuse de Bœuf, Sauce Béarnaise Purée de Panais et

     Legumes Grillé – A macreuse de bœuf, served with Sauce Béarnaise accompanied by pureed parsnips and grilled vegetables. Sauce Béarnaise has been topping France and the world's sauce popularity polls for nearly two-hundred years. It is one of the few sauces that may be served with steaks and roasts as well as salmon and vegetables whether cold or hot.

     Sauce Bearnaise: In 1830 the chef Louis Françoise-Collinet took the recipe for Sauce Hollandaise, omitted the lemon juice and added white wine vinegarshallots, and the herbs chervil (cerfeuiland tarragon (estragonand created Sauce Béarnaise. It's the tarragon and white wine vinegar that supplies the tang that creates Sauce Béarnaise devotees.  The name Béarnaise may seem to indicate that the sauce comes from the old province of Béarn, once part of the independent kingdom of Navarre that straddled the Pyrenees and had one border in Spain and the other in France. While Navarre had many recipes of its own none were related to Sauce Béarnaise. Nevertheless, when the chef Collinet named the sauce, he did have Béarn and Navarre on his mind. His restaurant near Paris was called The Pavillon Henry IV, and Henry IV of France, was, before assuming that title, had been Henry III of Navarre and Prince of the Principality of Béarn in Navarre. When Henry became King of France he brought Navarre into France.


Steak Tatare is often made with the macreuse à biftek
Photograph courtesy of Hotel du Vin & Bistro
https://www.flickr.com/photos/hdv-gallery/7138285281/


Macreuse

      Be careful when looking up macreuse  in a French-English dictionary.

     Most dictionaries translate macreuse as the scooter sea duck. Members of the scooter duck family may be hunted one month a year, though its vary rare to see one on a restaurant menu.

      In 1870 Alexander Dumas (père)  the author of the Three Musketeers and the Count of Monte Cristo and four hundred other works published his over one-thousand-page Grand Dictionnaire de Cuisine, his grand dictionary of cuisine.  (Dumas had  a second life as a  well known gourmand  and amateur cook apart from his writing). You can his read dictionary, more  a book or recipe and food stories, on line or download (at a very low cost) the original at the French National Library (BnF). (I have seen an out-of-print English language selection from Dumas’s dictionary available second-hand on Amazon: Dumas on Food: by Alan and Jane Davison).

   

 


Scoter (macreuse) ducks.
Scoters are sea ducks but they are also found in freshwater lakes and rivers close to the sea.
Photograph courtesy of Jean-Marie Van der Maren
www.flickr.com/photos/jmvdmaren/10316987185/

 

      If you living in France and want to prepare this tasty steak read the description in the supermarket or at the butchers carefully.  There is a second cut called a macreuse à pot-au-feu which as its name describes is for stewing.  A traditional pot-au-feu includes beef, marrow bones (á la moelle ), carrots (carottes). turnips (navets), leeks (poireaux), celery (céleri), onions (oignons), potatoes and herbs.  One of the cuts of beef in a pot-au-feu will always be the macreuse à pot-au- feu. Pot-a-feus may be on menus as Baeckeoffes, Garbures and other local names where the ingredients are often pork with beef added as an afterthought.

 

      If you have a butcher that not only sells pre-packaged beef, ask what other cuts, they offer from the whole chuck, and not just the all-inclusive chuck steak. Who knows, you may have found someone who knows how to cut good and inexpensive steaks from the chuck.

 

Connected Posts:

Á la Moelle – Dishes Served With or Flavored With Bone Marrow. Á la Moelle on French Menus.

Ail - Garlic. Garlic in French Cuisine.

Bacon in France. Bacon and Salted Pork on French Menus. Lard in French Means Bacon in English.

Baeckeoffe – A Traditional Alsatian Peasant Stew That Made the Big Time.

Carottes - Carrots in French Cuisine.

Céleri - Celery. The Joys of Celery in French Cuisine.

The Cèpe - The French Porcini Mushroom. The Cepe in French Cuisine. The Mushrooms Of France III.

Cerfeuil – Chervil, the Herb, in French Cuisine.

Chanterelle Girolle - The Chanterelle Mushrooms in French Cuisine. The Mushrooms of France IV.

Cidre - Cider in France. France's Fabulous Ciders, Sparkling Ciders and Basque Cider.

Citron – The Lemon. The Lemon, the Lime, the Citron, the Kaffir Lime and the Pomelo in French Cuisine.

Échalotes - Shallots. Shallots on French Menus. Shallots are One of the Most Important Herbs in the French Kitchen

Entrecôte - Ordering a Perfect Entrecote Steak in France.

Frites or Pommes Frites - French Fries in the USA and Chips in the UK. French Fries on French Menus.

Navets (Turnips), Panais (Parsnips), and Chou-Navets or Rutabaga (Swedes) are traditional root vegetables but also very much part of modern French cuisine.

Oignon or Ognon – An Onion. Onions on French menus. France’s most famous onions and their history.

Poireaux – Leeks. The Leek in French Cuisine.

Poivre - Peppercorns. White, Green, Black and Red Peppercorns. Grey Pepper and the Misnamed Pink Peppercorns. Pepper in French Cuisine.

Pot-au-Feu or Pot Bouilli – Pot on the Fire - France’s Most Famous Stew.

Salades - Salads. Forty of the Most Popular (and Simply Made) French Salads. Salads in France.

Sanglier - Wild Boar on French Menus?

Sauce Béarnaise, its Creation, its Creator and its Connection with Béarn. Sauce Béarnaise in French Cuisine.

Sauce Hollandaise. The Mother of All Sauces.

Tartare - Tartar on French Menus. Steak Tartare, Fish Tartare and Vegetable Tartare.

Estragon - Tarragon. Tarragon, the herb, in French Cuisine.

Á la Moelle – Dishes Served With or Flavored With Bone Marrow. Á la Moelle on French Menus.

Carottes - Carrots in French Cuisine.

Moutarde – Mustard. Mustard (Including Dijon Mustard) in French cuisine.

Navets (Turnips), Panais (Parsnips) and Swedes (Chou-Navets or Rutabaga). Traditional Root Vegetables in Modern French Cuisine.

Oignon or Ognon – An Onion. Onions on French menus. France’s most famous onions and their history.

Parmentier - The Man Who Brought the Potato to French Menus.

Pates and Terrines. An introduction to the meat, fish, vegetable and fruit pates on French menus. 

Poireaux – Leeks. The Leek in French Cuisine.

Pot-au-Feu or Pot Bouilli Pot on the Fire - France’s Most Famous Stew.

Sainte-Maure de Touraine AOP - The Sainte-Maure de Touraine Cheese. Sainte-Maure de Touraine is One of France's Finest Goat's milk cheeses

Salades - Salads. Forty of the Most Popular (and Simply Made) French Salads. Salads in France.

The French Connection and The English Kitchen .

Vinegar, Vinaigrette and Verjus in French Cuisine.

 

Searching for the meaning of words, names or phrases
on
French menus?

Just add the word, words, or phrase that you are searching for to the words "Behind the French Menu" and search that with Google. Behind the French Menu is also a blog with links that include many hundreds of words, names, and phrases that are seen on French menus. There are over 450 articles that include over 4,000 French dishes with English translations and explanations.

 

Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman
behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com
Copyright 2010, 2018, 2023, 2024, 2025.

 


 

Petit Bisous to Petite Marmite. Food Names on French Menus With the Prefix Petit or Petite in French Cuisine.

from
Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman
behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com

  
Petit Bisous – Little Kisses.

Petit or Petite – Little or small.

This post is about foods and food products that have names that include the words Petit or Petite.  (For more about the usage and pronunciation of petit and petite see the final paragraphs in this post).

Names that include Petit and Petite on French menus:
 
Petit Bisous – Little kisses; small sweet biscuits or bite-sized servings.

Petit-beurre - The petit beurre biscuit.  True to its name, this biscuit, which translates as little butter is made with very little butter; however, there is plenty of sugar in the recipe.  The biscuit's creation is claimed by Nantes, the capital of the department of Loire-Atlantique in the region of the Pays de la Loire.

According to a well-founded tradition, a Mr. Louis Lefèvre-Utilem who owned a small pâtisserie created the petit-beurre biscuit in the late 19th century; his biscuit would bring additional fame to that beautiful city. 
  
Petit-beurre biscuits.
The picture shows the L U mark, the initials of Mr. Louis Lefèvre-Utilem
www.flickr.com/photos/inra_dist/38711176322/
 
Petit Déjeuner – Breakfast.  Breakfast in a French private home is most often a baguette or another bread, hopefully, fresh that morning, possibly toasted but certainly buttered.   In the larger towns and cities, a buttered baguette will be behind the traditional Tartine Beurrée, that may be offered with marmalade or another preserve and accompanied by the most popular French breakfast drink which is a large café au lait, a very milky coffee.  Croissants  are usually saved for weekend breakfasts.  (See Ordering coffee in France)


Some of the most memorable breakfasts I have ever had have been hotel breakfasts in France.   One, which comes to mind, from a bank of pleasant memories, was at a small hotel in Paris. We ordered our breakfast the night before for 8:30 am.  At 8:20 am we were called on the telephone to advise that coffee would be coming in ten minutes; time to organize ourselves I suppose.  Exactly ten minutes later there was a knock on the door and following my entré, enter, a waiter entered with a tray carrying two cafés au lait and two French newspapers; these were delivered to our bedside.  Our breakfast followed another 10 minutes later; another knock,  another entré, and in came a waitress pushing a beautiful antique trolley holding shining silverware, starched  table linens, freshly squeezed orange juice, English tea with cold milk as requested, fried eggs for me, warm croissants and a still warm baguette, cut, buttered and with marmalade on the side.

Along with all this came, a huge bowl of flowers and a small bowl of fresh grapes (along with a finger bowl); a gift of the house.  The waitress pulled out the sides of her trolley, created a small table, arranged our breakfast, set two chairs, next to the table and with a slight curtsy left.  As you may imagine everything at breakfast was outstanding; I forgave them the lack of an English language newspaper.

The French can make a room-service breakfast much more civilized than many other nations do. In most of my US experiences with hotels of a similar classification the room service breakfast will include cold toast, frozen orange juice, lukewarm coffee, and soggy scrambled eggs.
   
Delivering breakfast in bed.
www.flickr.com/photos/usfwsmidwest/43946482621/
 
Petit-déjeuner Buffet –A buffet breakfast. (Déjeuner is lunch, and dîner is diner).

Petit-déjeuner Enfant – A child’s breakfast. Usually, a French hotel’s children’s breakfast menu will offer cereal, a glass of milk and or fruit juice and occasionally fresh fruit.

Petit Épeautre – Wild Einkorn, Einkorn or Small Spelt. Small spelt is another small grain and an ancient family member of modern wheat; it is also grown in Provence and a few other places in Europe. It may brighten up the menu with something not seen every day.
  
To the left regular wheat, to the right small spelt.
www.flickr.com/photos/markanddelwen/108366169/

Petit Farcis Niçois  - A traditional Niçoise dish of stuffed vegetables. Depending on the season you will be served a plate of stuffed courgettes, aubergines, bell peppers and or tomatoes.  The vegetables will be stuffed with chopped pork, veal, and rice and flavored with fresh herbs. The dish will usually be sprinkled with grated Parmesan or Gruyere cheese and browned under the grill before serving.  (Cuisine Niçoise also called Cuisine Nissarde is the Cuisine from the City of Nice on France’s Mediterranean coast).

Petit Gris – The small gray; the popular small escargot, the smaller of France two popular edible snails; the other larger snail is the Escargot de Bourgogne. The Petit Gris has many local names including Lumas, Chagriné, Carsaulada, La Zigrinata, and Cargouille.

Petit Gris - One of the names used for the gray agaric or gray knight mushroom more usually called the griset.  

Petit Pan A bread roll.

Petit Poisson de Roche - Small fish. The name implies small fish caught close to shore, near the rocks but is used for many different small fish.

Petit Salé – Salted pork. Salted pork entered the French and English kitchens as one of the most important foods that could be stored for long sea voyages. The pork would be cured in water and salt for anything from four to six weeks and then air-dried.  Smoked salted pork was cold smoked for up to a week or more. Both air-dried salt pork and smoked salt pork could be stored for months, and the recipes made with salt pork have become part of the traditional dishes of many countries.
 
Petit-Suisse – A very popular 40% fat, white, soft, creamy, cow’s milk cheese and the most popular fresh cheese in France. The cheese was created in, and a great deal is still produced in Normandy; it is not a Swiss cheese.
 
Petit Quinquin (Menus du) or Menus du P'tit Quinquin -  P'tit or petit Quinquin is a little child in the language of Piccard, the original language of Picardy in North Western France; local menus occasionally use Petit Quinquin as a cute heading for a child’s menu.  The words P'tit Quinquin are also the best-known title of a song otherwise called L'Canchon Dormoire, The Lullaby. The song was written by a favorite son of Picardy, Alexander Desrousseaux (1820- 1892); he wrote in the language of Piccard.  In Lille the most famous square for visitors is the Place du Général de Gaulle, who was born in Lille; but for the locals equally as famous is the Square Foch which many call the Le P'tit Quinquin square as apart from a statue of Maréchal Foch the square holds a bust of Desrousseaux. A tune from the song the  P'tit Quinquinis is sounded every hour by the carillon of the belfry of the Chamber of Commerce of Lille. (Since 1-1-2016 Piccardt is part of the new super region of Hauts-de-France).

Names that include Petite on French Menus:

Petite Friture – On your menu for a tasty entrée of deep-fried little fish. (see the appendix Fish: Poissons de Roche). 

Petite Friture de Lac – Deep fried little freshwater fishes from the lake. (see the appendix Fish: Poissons de Roche). 

Petite Portion –  A small portion. A menu may offer different sizes of the portions of a particular dish; that allows the diner to choose a smaller portion as an entrée. 

Petite Marmite –A petite marmite in a French kitchen is a small cooking dish while the petite marmite on your menu will be a stew served in that same dish. By tradition, the stew will have been cooked in the bowl in which it will be served.  Petite marmites are usually made from beef and or chicken but may also be made with fish. Most marmites will be accompanied by carrots, turnips, cabbage, leeks, and herbs. Petite marmites are the name given to similar and smaller, cooking pots than those called a marmite without any prefix. The stew cooked in a petite marmite will often be served in it. The traditional shapes used for the pots called marmites and petite marmites have long gone, but the recipes remain.

The Marmites above are 100% French marmites.  They have nothing to do with or will taste anything like the UK Marmite. The UK Marmite is a yeast extract flavoring that was loved by Queen Victoria and is still popular, in the UK, today. 

Names that include Petits on French menus:

Petits-fours – Tiny cakes and pastries served at the end of a meal; usually served along with the coffee. Some may be fairly simple preparations; some may be works of art that are nearly too beautiful to eat.
   
Petits-fours
www.flickr.com/photos/panpacificvancouver/24000458289/
  
Petits Légumes or Petits Légumes Printaniers - Small, young vegetables or small young spring vegetables; a translated menu may note small or miniature vegetables. Most restaurants using the words petits or nouvelle, small or new, before the name of a particular vegetable will just be advising you that the vegetables they are using are young, small, not fully grown; the inference is that they will be sweet and tender. 

Chefs also create attractive dishes with miniature vegetables and these are fully grown, but tiny cauliflowers, eggplants, etc.  These are called mini-légumes, miniature vegetables.  They taste the same as the full-grown original but on your plate add to the restaurant theater.
 
 Petits Pois – Small, fresh, sweet, green peas.
   


Petite Pois
Photograph courtesy of Frédérique Voisin-Demery
https://www.flickr.com/photos/vialbost/9140280473/



Petit or Petite  –  Small or little.
Masculine and feminine.

Petit is the masculine form, and petite is the feminine of the words little or small. The pronunciation is different with the masculine petit pronounced without sounding the final t (pronounced petee)  and the feminine petite (with the e added) having the final t  sounded (pronounced peteet).
   
For the correct pronunciation, I suggest using one of the programs below. They offer sound bytes and that is much better than my written suggestions and I use them.

http://forvo.com/languages/fr/ (Best for single words)

Unlike English where we can get away using "it" for most nouns, there are no grammatical rules for French masculine and feminine nouns, usage is learned.  Le Petit Concombre, the small cucumber is masculine, and La Petite Carotte, the small carrot is feminine.  When ordering in a restaurant I don't worry if I make mistakes, the Maitre d's (or Maîtres d') are always forgiving. 

My original notes on French menu listings were memory prompts written for my own use;  however, for the book Behind the French Menu, I try to use examples that others have checked. Nevertheless, mistakes may remain and they are mine alone.
  
Connected Posts:



 
  
  
 
 


   
 
 
 


 
 

 

 

Searching for the meaning of words, names or phrases
on
French menus?

Just add the word, words, or phrase that you are searching for to the words "Behind the French Menu" and search with Google. Behind the French Menu’s links include hundreds of words, names, and phrases that are seen on French menus. There are over 450 articles that include over 4,000 French dishes with English translations and explanations.
  

Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman
behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com
Copyright 2010, 2018, 2023.


Responsive ad